Why?
by AFictionalWriter
Summary: After discovering the ring in Peter's photo, Neal tries to deal with the supposed backstabbing of one of his closest friends.
1. Chapter 1

After perusing the endless pages of White Collar fanfiction, I couldn't help but get this little fanfic idea stuck in my head. Just a short one-shot piece about Neal trying to deal with Peter having the same ring as the man who has Kate, and ends up in him getting mad at Peter for supposedly lying to him this entire time (but you guys remember this, right?). This will later be accompanied by Neal's thoughts on what he's thinking after Peter tells him the truth, and then what he thinks after they make it out of the air-tight safe.

Oh, and I don't own any of the White Collar characters or plot lines, and I'm not making any money after this…. So- on with the show!

* * *

He didn't want to believe it. He refused to believe it.

Neal's mind swam with questions as he gripped the counter in his partner's bathroom. Or should he say his backstabber's bathroom? 'Cause that was what he was, if he really had Kate all this time.

After having convinced Peter that working on the case at his house was far better than at the office (coffee was always the sure-fire way to get him to agree to something) and lying about needing to use the bathroom, Neal had studied the pictures of Peter and Elizabeth leading to the second floor. He'd admit, there was a sense of relief that touched over him briefly as he found no ring in the first picture, one of the two on vacation, and even began to think that, maybe, Fowler and Moz had been wrong about Peter. But as Neal moved on to the next picture, there it was. The ring.

_He couldn't have her_, Neal thought frantically. _Why would he? What could he possibly hope to get out of this? Of lying to me?_

Of course Peter had answered that himself just hours before. Neal couldn't see how Peter thought he might get money out of holding Kate, keeping her from Neal and then lying to him about it. The Bureau only gave Neal seven hundred a month to live on. There was the fact that Neal could get his hands on more, sure, but would Peter actually hold Kate just for that?

No, it had to be something different. But what? He seemed content with what he had already. Good job, nice house, faithful wife – all he was missing was two kids running around wreaking havoc. Neal was right in what he told Moz – he _knew_ Peter. The three years of the cat-and-mouse game they'd both played led to Neal knowing Peter possibly more than the agent knew himself.

But it was him. Peter had the ring in the picture, and that meant he had Kate. There wasn't any other explanation for it.

Neal turned the faucet on and began splashing cold water onto his face, trying to stop himself from shaking.

Just when he had begun to think that Peter was someone he could trust, someone that would always help him no matter what, he lies to his partner. The conman in him told him that he should have expected this. No one was to be trusted, not even a federal agent. Always expect lies from deceit from everyone – from cons, from feds. Everyone.

_But what kind of world is it_, Neal thought as he reached for a towel and began drying his face, _when you can't even trust the man who put you in jail?_

Placing the towel back on its hanger, Neal looked at himself in the mirror. The usual brightness from his blue eyes had turned to stone, and his jaw was stiff. If Peter was holding Kate, Neal couldn't just sit idly by and let him get what he wanted.

Not knowing just how he planned to get away from Peter and the whole damn FBI, Neal opened the door and walked back downstairs.


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second part of my wonderful series of one-shots. If you remember from my ramble before the beginning of the first chapter, this one's going to be what Neal thinks after Peter tells him why and where he got his ring. It's a little late in getting posted, mainly due to my BPA meeting two weekends ago (Business Professionals of America; it's this nation-wide organization where students compete with people from their home state to go on to Nationals, which is being held in Cali this year) and my own horrid habit of procrastinating. But now, it's finally getting posted so it's all good.

Also, as many of you may know, I do not own White Collar, its characters, plot lines (except for this one), or anything – although I'm sure a few of us wouldn't mind having Neal Caffrey as their own personal pet convict haha. But enough of my senseless rambling already – on with the show!

* * *

Closing the front door of Peter and Elizabeth's house, Neal walked down the front steps and onto the dark sidewalk in the direction of June's house. He put his hands in his coat pockets and made his way down the street, thinking over everything he and the couple had just talked about.

Normally Neal would call up a taxi during the nighttime instead of walking, and he never went on a bus or subway train if he could (which was all of the time; he found public buses and subways an appalling way to travel), but he felt that the present situation called for him to think it over by himself in a quiet location, and sitting in a gum-covered, cigar-smelling taxi cab just wouldn't fit the bill.

Neal felt a little guilty for having accused Peter of having Kate and lying to him when he had done no such thing. Yes, Peter did not trust him as much as he would like, and Neal couldn't blame him for that (he _was_ an ex-con, after all), but he'd never really done anything to deserve such hatred. He kind of hoped that, maybe, if he helped Peter to solve the case and catch Avery and his partner, then Peter would forgive him and forget all about Neal being so cruel. He didn't

He would admit, though, he had been truly relieved that Peter couldn't be the man in the photo. The part of him that had told him all along that he wasn't gloated with pride as the part of him that said he was – the conman in him – slunk back into a deep, dark corner of his mind with a scowl upon his face. And, as it watched the other dance and sing, it sneered and reminded him that he still didn't have Kate. It hoped to knock the other down at least one more time.

It worked.

Crossing a street and digging his hands deeper into his pockets, Neal's mind flooded with questions. If Peter wasn't the man with the ring, then who was? He definitely had to be in the Bureau, or some affiliated agency, or else he would not have the same ring as Peter. And he was high up in ranking, also, and had been in the agency for at least ten years. A man that high ranking and important would be hard to knock down, especially if he had an entire team taking his orders without question.

But how would he do it? That was the question that was of the upmost importance right now. He definitely needed to figure out who it was, first of all, then when he had all the information he had on him he could begin planning what to do next. He would certainly need Mozzie's help, along with Peter's, however slim that might end up being.

Neal didn't like this – not knowing who was pulling the strings. He always tried to know everything, making sure that he knew how it would end up for him during a con, or even in real life. So many lose ends suggested that things may not end up as Neal wanted them to, which scared him a little. Damn, he'd tried avoiding this before – he hated feeling like this. He hated feeling helpless. You couldn't be a con and feel helpless. A con called for an overflow of confidence and pride. Lying in general called for confidence. People could always tell when a nervous person lied to me – maybe they didn't always know it, but the funny feeling that told them something was wrong alerted them, and most people were smart enough to listen to that funny feeling. And if you couldn't convince your mark that you weren't who you said you were, then how was everything supposed to work out?

But the endless questions and possible outcomes came in on him, pushing him into a corner he couldn't get out of and taunted him for his ignorance, his lack of control on his life. Neal began to walk faster in a desperate attempt to escape them. He didn't have any answers, and that was what he needed. Answers to the questions that had just sprung up and those that had haunted him every since Kate told him goodbye that day in jail. Answers to questions he knew he couldn't answer.

If he could just figure out who the man with the ring really was, then everything else would fall easily into place. He could effortlessly come up with a plan if he knew the man's strengths and weak-nesses, who his friends and his enemies were, the best place to strike in order to get Kate back.

Neal sighed as he slowly climbed the front steps of June's mansion. Stepping over the threshold, being careful not to wake up anyone, he went to his apartment and, placing his coat and hat on the wooden coat rack, allowed himself to loosen up and shrug off the façade he usually saved for other people. And as he sat down on the expensive coach in his living room he decided that, no matter what, he'd get his Kate back.


	3. Chapter 3

This is the last part of my short series of one-shots, which has Neal thinking over everything after he and Peter arrest Avery and his partner at his house party. It's sort of a recap of the last two parts, plus Neal's thoughts on Peter talking to Kate and about the music box. This'll probably be my last White Collar fanfic for a little while, as I've completely run out of ideas.

Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar or any of its character, plot lines, etc. – just this one story so far.

* * *

It was getting harder for Neal to fall asleep.

He had figured that out a long time ago, back when Kate first said goodbye. In prison Neal would stay awake trying to find a way out of that hell, or fantasizing about when he had found and convinced her to stay. Neal had never doubted that he could convince her to stay; if he could persuade his marks that he wasn't going to steal their Monets, Goyas or Rembrandts, surely he could persuade the girl he loved to not leave him.

His staying awake in prison had been voluntary, however: he stayed awake with a purpose, a goal in mind that Neal was intent on achieving. But after Peter released him from prison, and he became able to relax a little, knowing that he could, at least, walk the same streets as Kate did for the time being, Neal discovered that he could not fall asleep some nights, mostly whenever Moz found something new on Kate and the man with the ring. Those nights he was almost forced to stare up at his ceiling, or at the Bordeaux wine bottle Kate left him, his mind filled with questions, incomplete plans and whatever other information Moz had provided him.

And with him accusing Peter of having Kate and lying to him, then finding out that the man with the ring was, in fact, Fowler, made it impossible for his conscious to allow him that badly needed rest. Sometimes Neal thought that his conscious felt he deserved to be in some sort of pain for all of the stupid mistakes he had made in his entire life.

So there he was, lying on his expensive bed in his apartment, staring up at the ceiling for what seemed like the hundredth time since he left prison. Neal's mind buzzed with everything that had happened in the past few days, trying to register it all. He had since quit attempting to fall asleep a couple of hours ago, and simply succumbed to the pointless wandering his mind went through every now and then.

Not that anyone knew he didn't sleep some nights.

Of course, the headache that had slowly been getting worse since his brief brush with death earlier that day made it hard for him to fall asleep also. Neal winced as a painful throb shot through his head. He wondered whether it was worth getting up and taking some painkillers to alleviate some of the throbbing; he had taken a couple pills just a few hours before, but they didn't seem to be working.

He turned over onto his side, trying to focus on anything other than the constant throbbing. His mind finally settled on him finding out that Peter had talked to Kate and that she needed the queen's music box. Everyone still thought that he had acquired it some time ago, and that he had stashed it away along with all of his other stolen treasures. Neal had almost told Peter that he never had the music box in the first place, that it was one of the few things that eluded him throughout his criminal life, but he stopped. It didn't seem right to tell him that – at least not yet.

But Peter had also told him that Kate was using him just to get to the music box. And Neal didn't believe him. Yes, he trusted Peter, but he wasn't quite ready to believe a claim like that yet. It seemed far-fetched, and crazy, and just plain ridiculous. Why would Kate be using him? Why wouldn't she just go out and look for it on her own? It had to have to do with the man with the ring – that was the only logically explanation. He wanted the music box, and he had Kate to get Neal to give it to him. If everyone in the criminal world thought he had the music box, why not a federal agent?

Neal couldn't see how he'd be able to get the music box, though. It was basically a legend among con artists like him mainly for the fact that no one knew where it was or who had it. He once had his eyes on the box a long time ago – the challenge of finding something that no one else could excited him enough to make him spend weeks on end trying to dig up information on where to get it, but it had come up short. And Neal was smart enough to know when to give up on a lost cause.

Getting the music box wouldn't be a lost cause now, however, not if it meant having Kate safely in his arms again. Neal _needed_ that music box. It was his one ticket to having Kate back, being happy and – possibly – freedom. The "freedom" he thought about suggested running away from the FBI, June, Moz, Peter and Elizabeth, almost everything and everyone he had come to know and, dare he say it, care about since he left prison. If he did get his hands on the music box, and gave it to Fowler and finally got to be with Kate again, he would have to leave New York for good. Once he ran, he'd always be running.

Neal sighed again. He didn't like the thought of running his entire life. He'd rather have the chance to be able to live in one place for good, just him and Kate, not needing to use fake passports or names or backgrounds. On the other hand, if he cut his tracker and did run away, he'd have no choice. He was still on probation, and running constituted a trip back to prison. Peter would most likely be the one to catch him if he did; he'd caught him two times before, and a third time wouldn't be so hard for the intelligent fed. That is, if he wasn't too angry or disappointed in him to bother looking for him.

Neal rolled over onto his back to stare up at his ceiling once again. He didn't have many options to choose from nowadays. He always had a limited number of doors to pick after he'd left prison. It was always door number one, which was to keep his toe in line, go by the FBI's rules and maybe staying out of prison and finishing his work release, or door number two, which was running from it all and looking for Kate with Moz a few thousand miles away under an assumed name and always looking over his shoulder. A life he wasn't really meant for or a paranoid freedom. Those were his choices.

But what would he choose?

………

Neal got up to get those painkillers.


End file.
